Chapter 16 - The Return Home
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Three weeks later, the media circus was in full swing, but we were entirely removed from it. Abigail moved back into my home just off the military base.
It wasn't a permanent arrangement, and I made sure she knew that. She wasn't moving back into her childhood bedroom to regress; she was staying with me just until she was ready to face the world on her own terms again. That distinction was incredibly important to me. I did not want to replace Nicholas's toxic form of control with a suffocating, overprotective maternal one. She needed autonomy more than she needed a bodyguard.
But the healing process was painfully slow. The trauma had rewired her brain to constantly anticipate an attack.
Every single morning, I would sit at the kitchen island with my coffee and ask her a simple question.
"What do you want to do today, Abigail?"
At first, even the most basic choices completely overwhelmed her. Nicholas had made every decision for her for so long that she had forgotten how to choose.
"What do you mean, what do I want?" she asked one morning, looking at me with wide, panicked eyes, as if giving the wrong answer would result in punishment. "I... I can do whatever you need me to do, Mom. I can clean. I can cook."
I walked over and gently placed my hands on her shoulders. I smiled warmly. "I mean exactly what I said, sweetheart. If you want to sleep until noon, sleep. If you want to eat ice cream for breakfast, I'll hand you a spoon. If you want to sit in the garden and stare at the sky, the patio is yours. This is your life. You call the shots."
Slowly, day by agonizing day, she began remembering who she had been before she met Nicholas Ferguson.
She started reaching out to her old college friends, apologizing for her sudden disappearance. She bought a set of acrylic paints and a canvas, returning to the art she had abandoned to please Patricia. And most importantly, she began meeting twice a week with a specialized trauma counselor.
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The counselor helped her navigate the treacherous waters of her own guilt, helping her understand the one truth she struggled to accept the most: absolutely none of what happened to her was her fault.
She wasn't stupid for falling in love with a monster. She was simply a victim of a very well-practiced predator.
